Nicholas Sparks Quotes

The only rule I have when writing is to try to tell the truth. That doesn't mean you can't exaggerate, edit, rewrite things to make them more dramatic. But emotional truth is what I look for in writing.

I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end.

I'm not sure I have the physical strength to undertake a novel.

I've never abandoned the novel.

The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.

You have to have heart's passion to write a novel.

I save the best of myself for novels, and I believe it shows.

I've been asked which of the other arts novel-writing is most like, and I have come to believe it is acting. Of course, in terms of pattern it can be like music, in terms of structure it can be like painting, but the job to me is most like acting.

I've always liked the idea that writing is a form of travel. And I started my writing career as a mystery novelist for adults.

Fans always say they laughed and they cried while reading my books. And I tell them that I laughed and cried while writing them.

The only way to be a novelist, to think that you can create something others will give themselves up to for a dozen hours or more, is to have psychotic self-belief.

When I'm sitting writing, I know that something works if I've made myself cry, or laugh, or have a visceral emotion.

I don't steer towards anything. I steer towards character and truth. If it's funny then so be it. If it's dramatic, so be it. I just steer towards characters.

I've tried to write deep and serious. I spent years working to write a story that would make my writing group cry.

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

I love to write. I write everything across the board - kids' stories and novels and scripts. I actually would like to give that a go; I'd like to try to be a writer.

No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.

It's that drama that drives authors, you know.

So, I outlined a horror novel and started writing.

I started to write in 2001. I wrote the books for the fun of it. It was an old idea I had had since the nineties.

My greatest fear is feeling like a professional novelist. Somebody who creates characters, who sits down and has pieces of paper taped to the wall - what's going to happen in this scene, or this act. What I like is for it to be a much more scary, sloppy reflection of who I am.

There is an element of autobiography in all fiction in that pain or distress, or pleasure, is based on the author's own. But in my case that is as far as it goes.

A novel that features real people is complicated, but in the end, that extra challenge is all for the good.

The best novel I wrote was one called 'Crusoe's Daughter,' which never won any prizes. But I was getting somewhere in that. I'm not sure I have in any of the others.